Combine PDF Files

Combine multiple PDF files into a single PDF document.

Usage

The user can specify:

• A directory containing PDF files (files will be sorted alphabetically by filename)
• Multiple specific PDF file paths (order is preserved as given)
• Output file path for the combined PDF

Script Details

• Script location: $HOME/.claude/skills/pdf-combine/scripts/combine_pdfs.py
• Dependency: PyMuPDF (fitz) - pip install PyMuPDF

Instructions

1. Determine the source PDF files:

• If user provides a directory, all PDFs in that directory will be combined in alphabetical order
• If user provides specific file paths, use them in the exact order provided

2. Determine the output file path:

• If user specifies an output path, use it
• If not specified, ask the user for the output file name/path

3. Run the combine script:

   python3 $HOME/.claude/skills/pdf-combine/scripts/combine_pdfs.py <input1.pdf> <input2.pdf> ... -o <output.pdf>
   

   Or for a directory:

   python3 $HOME/.claude/skills/pdf-combine/scripts/combine_pdfs.py <directory> -o <output.pdf>
   

4. Report the results to the user (number of files combined, total pages, output location)

Examples

Combine specific files in order

python3 $HOME/.claude/skills/pdf-combine/scripts/combine_pdfs.py \
  chapter1.pdf chapter2.pdf chapter3.pdf \
  -o book.pdf

Combine all PDFs in a directory (alphabetical order)

python3 $HOME/.claude/skills/pdf-combine/scripts/combine_pdfs.py \
  ./documents/ \
  -o combined.pdf

Order Rules

• Directory input: Files are sorted alphabetically by filename (case-insensitive)
• Explicit file list: Files are combined in the exact order provided by the user
• If user wants a specific order for files in a directory, they should provide the files explicitly

Error Handling

• If a file doesn't exist, the script will report an error
• If no PDF files are found in a directory, the script will report an error
• Non-PDF files are skipped with a warning